Minoy
Minoy often split his tapes into two “albums”, one on each side. On side two the piece is called “Universities Of Lies”
Look closely and you can see he had earmaked this tape for me.
I believe this was the first tape I received from Minoy. A sonic world unto its own.
side one: Bleak Counterpoint: This Is A Sentence ( settings/sittings/readings)1.introduction and theme.
side two: Bleak Counterpoint:2. sonic development from 1987
One night after driving home in my car I had this tape in the cassette player and was so transfixed I had to listen to the entire 30 minute side before getting out. It was raining and the noise Minoy created had me in a trance and gave me some kind of unexplainable revelation.
Side two has “The Tyranny Of Distance”
One rainy night I was driving home with this tape on my cassette deck. The lightning bolt static, the powerful noise blanketing me and transfixing me to my car seat even after I had arrived. I sat there in the dark hypnotized by the sound, the revelation.
On the right, Minoy graces the cover of the July 1991 issue of Electronic Cottage magazine.
some assorted pics that were included with the feature article.
In 1986 I became aware of the Los Angeles sound artist Minoy after receiving one of his tapes for my radio show. I didn’t know what to think at first. There was no accompanying letter, no personal exchange, nothing to grab on to and understand except the music. The sounds were challenging, irritating at times, hallucinogenic and mindblowing. Jack Jordan ( Option reviewer and music critic) explains his experience below and provides some interesting discography information.
Jack Jordan
Stanley Bowsza (aka “Minóy” ) was not only one of the acknowledged “creators” of the 1980s “homemade” independent music scene, he was also one of its most-acclaimed and well-known through his extensive collaborations with literally dozens of other luminaries in the burgeoning scene.
Many have wondered how Mr. Bowsza came to adopt the name “Minóy.” It stemmed from his interest the visual arts: His favorite artist was Joan Miró, the renowned Catalan surrealist painter who died in 1983. One of Stanley’s friends, knowing this, mispronounced the artist’s name one time when discussing him with Stanley, referring to the artist as “Minóy.” Well, Stanley loved it, and the rest is history. As an aside, anyone who ever received a cassette from Minóy can attest to his talent with abstract art – some of his J-card cassette cover creations are works of art in themselves. And it was not unusual for him to artistically “decorate” the plastic cover so that it too became “art,” sometimes incorporating 3-D relief features with all kinds of embellishments.
But Minóy is best known for his solo compositions, which number well over 100. Whether a C60 or C90 cassette boasted only one, or perhaps six, works of audio art, he is recognized as the master of controlled noise, who used every sound imaginable in the world around him as his audio palette. Many releases had only one or two compositions, and these gave him the time to develop his themes and hypnotically enshroud the listener in what were usually very powerful works – which made for a very memorable and powerful “trip.” This was the secret to his magic and magnetism – calling his music “noise” properly identifies it in the respectful lexicon of the time, but doesn’t do it justice. It was, rather, a composed and, again, controlled manipulated agglomeration of sounds, natural and/or composed, that sucked you in with its precision and power. Then again, some of his works were totally different in structure, delicate yet powerful little mantras with alien riffs and melodies, often using, notably, a toy mouth organ, manipulated, echoed and multi-tracked to sound like a warning call from heaven – or hell. He also reveled in manipulating the human voice, another ingredient in the brew of several of his works. In summary, Minóy knew how to expertly manipulate any sound with another sound to come up with an engrossing, totally unique, brain-bending opus.
Minóy spent a couple of days with me in November 1987 in conjunction with a guest radio gig he was doing at a local radio station, and we toured San Francisco and the East Bay, visiting good record stores and doing a bit of the “tourist itinerary.” His recorder was clipped to his belt, always ready to capture interesting ambient sounds around us – which, with later manipulation and embellishments, were released as the Burning Tree (for Jack) cassette. It was great to meet him and I remember well his good humor, warm personality, acidic wit, and overall intelligence. He painted a wonderful work of abstract art for me, which hangs on our living-room wall to this day. We continued to keep in contact via phone and letters until we lost touch after he began a journey down different roads in the early ‘90s. But his music will live on forever.
You can hear a Radio Special that Jack Jordan and I did in 1988 here
It is a one hour mix of around 60 Minoy tapes.
Partial Minoy discography below.
Minoy Solo works
a Far Later Period
A Few Formalities Still Accorded
Humans
(2 titled pieces)
All Answers Answer All Questions
(5 C60 tapes; 10 titled pieces)
All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis
Amazonia
(2 titled pieces)
A Place of Shades
(2 titled pieces)
A Smell of Burnt Plastic and Rotten Oranges
AWAKE (A Dance for Ireland)
(5 titled pieces)
Bad Space
(2 titled pieces)
Bears Weigh the Same as Snakes
(2 titled pieces)
Be Cool (Spazm)
(5 titled pieces)
Black Market
(5 titled pieces)
Breaking Ear
(2 titled pieces)
Breaking the Same Bottle Twice
(2 titled pieces)
Burning Tree (For Jack)
Busy Signals
(6 titled pieces)
Celebration of the Sunrise
(2 titled pieces)
Cheap Friends
(7 titled pieces)
Chunk
Circles of Night
(4 titled pieces)
Consciousness and Alchemy
Cultural Crimes
Death Star Splash
(2 titled pieces)
Delicate Remnants of the Intangible
Removed and Preserved
(2 titled pieces)
Devil Music – Minóy Live at The Pub
(3 titled pieces; PBK [Phil-
lip B. Klingler] credited
as “Guest Artist”)
Doctor in a Dark Room
(2 titled pieces)
Dreamtime
(2 titled pieces)
Ejaculations (Paris, 1919)
(2 titled pieces)
Eternity Now
Firebird
(4 titled pieces)
Flirtations With Madness
(2 titled pieces)
Future Perfect
(7 titled pieces)
Goombah Dogbreath
(2 titled pieces)
Hypomania
I Can’t Even Talk About It Because I Am Living It
Ice Cream Money
(2 titled pieces)
Infinite Journey
In Search of Tarkovsky
(2 titled pieces)
In the Domain of the Double Moon
(2 titled pieces)
It’s No Game
(2 titled pieces)
Ivory Flash of Ambiguous Limbs
(2 titled pieces)
Jive Hot
(2 titled pieces)
Killer’s Kiss
(2 titled pieces)
Landscape with Serpent
(2 titled pieces)
Late Autumn
(8 titled pieces)
Life of the Life
(5 titled pieces)
Lunar Eclipse
(2 titled pieces)
Medea
Media Synthesis
(2 titled pieces)
Musique Terminale
(2 titled pieces)
Natural Rhythm
Neither Slumber Nor Sleep
(2 titled pieces)
Nervous Complaint
(2 titled pieces)
Nightslaves
(3 titled pieces)
Nocturnal Equations
(4 titled pieces)
Nostalghia
Not Knowing What Thunder Collects
Nuclear Swamp (For Arlen)
(2 C60 tapes; Parts 1-4)
Obscure Medicines
(7 titled pieces)
Our Desires Are Deprived of Cunning
Music
(5 titled pieces)
Outback
Panik Attak
(3 titled pieces)
Parts of Speech in the Nebula
(2 titled pieces)
Passage of the Migratory Bird
Pelleas et Melisande
Petty Jealousy
(9 titled pieces)
Plain Wrap Purgatory
(2 titled pieces)
Physical Radio
Prelude To a Plague
(2 titled pieces)
Pretty Young Negro Man
Priceless Mourning of Dead
Loves and Collapsed Perfumes
In Darker Waters
(6 titled pieces)
Psyberkynetyks
(Radio broadcast – KKUP, Cuper-
tino, CA, 5/8/88; excerpts from various
Minóy tapes compiled by Jack Jordan
and programmed by Don Campau;
show hosted by Campau/Jordan)
Radio Saddam
Rules of the Game
Secrets of The Talking Trees
Shortwave Mantra
Snap Diva
(2 titled pieces)
Solitude in a Motionless Migraine
(2 titled pieces)
Sound Proof
(3 C60 tapes, 6 titled pieces)
Spitting in Tongues
(2 titled pieces)
Spring Can Really Hang You Up
The Most
(2 titled pieces)
Squeezing the Tongue of the
Iguana Just to Hang On
Ssunspotss
(2 titled pieces)
Surpass and Overtake
(2 titled pieces)
Stasis and Acceleration
(2 titled pieces)
Stress Management
(2 titled pieces)
Taksim
(2 titled pieces)
Tempest in a Teacup
(3 titled pieces)
Tension, Fear, and Depravity
Tesshu
(2 titled pieces)
That Which Momentously Declares
Itself Not To Be I And Yet Must Be.
It Could Be Nothing Else.
The Art of Egyptian Bathing
(2 titled pieces)
The Caretaker of Denial
(2 titled pieces)
The Conditions of Postmodern Male
Bonding
(2 titled pieces)
The Flavor of Acid on Ice
(2 titled pieces)
The Future of City Living
The Great Wall
(2 titled pieces)
The Insomniac’s Halo of Worms
(2 titled pieces)
The Phantom Concerto
(7 titled pieces)
The Soul of a Tree
(2 titled pieces)
The Tyranny of Distance
(2 titled pieces)
The Well-Tuned Radio
(3 C60 tapes, 6 titled pieces)
The Zone
(2 titled pieces)
Then Perhaps a Last Time
(4 titled pieces)
Tomorrow and Tomorrow
(2 titled pieces)
Ugetsu
(3 titled pieces)
Urban Tribe
(7 titled pieces)
White With a Crust of Chill
(2 titled pieces)
XYZ
(2 titled pieces)
Minóy collaborations
(“rc” = “research collaborator(s).” It is possible that a very few of these names are Stanley Bowsza [Minóy] recording solo under a pseudonym.)
Andy Warhol’s Mother
(Minóy & ?)
The Silver Screen
Darling Candy
Anhedonia For Profit
(Minóy & Mystery Hearsay)
The Evolution of Cement
Balance of Terror
(rc; no info on J-card)
Guilt for Dreaming
Safe Sin
No Fats, No Fems, Uncut
Who Killed Fassbinder?
Money, Power, Guilt, Lies,
and More Lies (for David)
Bwannóy
(Minóy & Al Margolis)
Deconstruction Workers
The Ancients
Darker Corners
Disco Splendor
(Minóy & Philip B. Klingler)
“Command Performance
(Live in Hell)”
Skinned Alive
The Divine Comedy
Disco Splendor (cont’d.)
Correct Music
One Way
Another Way
New Wage
Poverty is for Fools
Elegy For a Wasteland
Vicious Icon (Indeterminate Distance)
Heteroglossia
Suturing the Wound of Castration with
Narrative
The Copulation of Cliches
The Limits of Liberation
Dangling Scrotum Girls
Mythology (recorded live)
Less is Less
Neutralize
Dead Fun (Reprise)
Dangling Scrotum Girls
El Angel Exterminador
(Minóy & Not-1/2)
Sic Transit Gloria Suez Tuesday
Provenance in Pencil
Go Potty
(Minóy & John Hudak)
This Right After This
Get Out, Do Places, Go Things
Grandbrother
(Minóy & Zan Hoffman)
The Minóy Speakeasy Club
Haints
(Minóy, Richard Meade, Tobacco
Spot, and Creative Thing)
Mademoiselle
Going Home
My Life as a Haint
Mysteries Unsolved
Half Haints
(Minóy & Tobacco Spot)
How the West Was One
Tumbleweed Factory
April 1985 (“very rare, unmixed,
unedited”) session
Jazz and Get Fat
(Minóy & Roger L. Moneymaker)
Colombe Don’t Belong
Improbable Resolutions for the
Phantom of Cordelia
Cathedral of Erotic Misery
My Tragic Little Cat in the Great
Dog’s Mouth
Dog Mouth
Peach Meat
Basements Paved in Gold
The Pacification of Conflicts
Johnny Switchblade
(Minóy, Christopher Smith, &
Roger L. Moneymaker)
L’amour Fou
The Detachable Prostitute
Juanita Fax
(rc; no info on J-card)
A Raincheck on Pain
Dry Hump
Lesbians of Color
(Minóy & ?)
Boy with Arms Akimbo
Channels of Desire
Trickfilm
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Lucy Godard
(rc; no info on J-card)
Á Bout de Souffle
Mental Anguish/Minóy
(Chris Phinney & Minóy)
Affection of Hometown Scars
Full Bloom (with Molly Ann
Phinney)
Minóy & Das Fröhliche Wohnzimmer
(Minóy & _________)
The Eternal Fires of Darkness
Minóy & Tom Furgas
(listed as “Tom Furgas & Minóy”)
White Trash Can’t Handle Success
Minóy/Hudak
(Minóy & John Hudak)
Requiem for Christina Paffgen
Economic Determinism
Minóy/PBK
(Minóy & Phillip B. Klingler)
“Chansons Mystiques”
The Hermaphrodite with Eyeglasses
and a Divining Rod
And Your Eyes Are Soft Like the
Hair of an Ape
Minóy & Zan Hoffman
M (Minóyzanthropy)
MinóyZannoy
(Minóy, Zan Hoffman, and
Roger L. Montgomery)
Minóyellstillife
(Minóy & Zan Hoffman)
Subdubminblast
Binge Personality (for Lido)
Moondogs
Inverse Zanamintones
Condoms or Corpses?
Caught in the Throat of the Beast
Forge a Pan
MinoyZannoy (cont’d.)
You Can Be Anything You Want
to Be This Time Around
Monochrome Melodrama
A Simple Case of Hysteria
Most of What You Deny is True
Multiple Minóy
The Sequel Without a Beginning
The Persistence of an Insistent
Memory
The Persistence of Memory
The Twists and Turns of The Loved And Hated M
The Plan
A Violent End
Round One: Minóy vs. Zannoy
XYZ
Why Do the Cat’s Feet Blur
Meat Rags
Sodomy in the Supreme Court Lobby
Subdubminblast
No Mail on Sundays
(Minóy & Damian Bisciglia [“Agog”])
Blood and Semen
In the Pit
Worried Through a New Machine
A Sensitive Boy
Door Closed Door Open
Radar Messages
Patience Worth Minóy
(Minóy & Dave Bush)
Forgive Us Our Debut As We Forgive
Those Who Debut Against Us
Penelope Waste
(rc; Minóy & ?)
Stiff
PM [Prescott/Minóy)
(Dave Prescott & Minóy)
Patches of Difficult Hours
Sinfonia au Contraire
Fertility
Ever Becoming is Endless Dying
Dancing About Architecture
Systems Engineering
Spaceshot
Hotline
Cybernetic Intercourse
Soft Focus (Music Which Plays Itself)
Second Thoughts
Mr. Spazmodi
On the Third Day
“and the evening and the morning”
The Dying Man (An Opera in Six
Scenes)(text by Gertrude Stein
and Minóy)
PM By PM
(Dave Prescott & Minóy)
One PM
Two PM
PMP
(Prescott/Minóy/Prescott)
(Dave Prescott intentionally credited
twice)
And Grinding Dairies
Parking Fords, and Porking
Feminists
PMZ
(Dave Prescott, Minóy, and Zan
Hoffman)
Zamindar
Speedo Van Gogh
(rc; no info on J-card)
Sorry, Sorry Night
No Sale!
Victims of Cinerama
(Minóy & Dan Fioretti)
Every Twelve Hundred Hours or a
New Stewardess….
The Hip, Far-Out and Groovy Sounds
of Tomorrow
Fun with Bernice and Her Yuppie
Girlfriends (Including the Return
of Waltzing Matilda)
Minóy Erases the Tapes of The
Partridge Family Reunion Album
